4 year college MBA advice

Plan on purchasing a 13" i7 8GB 128GB MBA for college this fall. I plan on using the student discount of dropping my cost to $1,280. I will be buying it during back to school promotion assuming (I get a 100 dollar iTunes gift card because of that). I am attempting to have this Mac for my 4 entire years of school. To accomplish that I figure I should purchase some kind of insurance, Can someone give me advice on a affordable one? Are there cheaper/better ones than AppleCare for my situation? I don't need theft coverage just mor repair/defective coverage. Is insurance on a Mac really needed? My iMac has had no problems and is almost 4 years old... No insurance on that one.

I've never bought Apple Care in nearly 30 years of buying Macs and I've never needed it. If you buy with American Express, they add a 1 year warranty onto the year you already get from Apple, and that's free. Visa and MasterCard might have similar coverage, but I don't use them, so I don't know.

I usually agree with JoEw but for a college laptop, I consider it a good investment -- this baby is going to get knocked around a quite bit. Also, from what I hear, Apple seems to always honor their warranty. On another note, opt for the 256GB drive to avoid regrets.

AppleCare will be alright, and you have I believe one year after purchase to buy it and add it to your MBA.

Buying it is up to you if you're willing to take the risk. With my 2006 MacBook The only issue I had with it was the battery bulging, and I think that would've been replaced with or without AC. A couple of years after AC ran out I had an issue with my display flickering, that was replaced free of charge. The part was about $5 and they replaced the top case because of recall, so they didn't charge me labor.

My 2010 MBP has AC until sometime later this year. So far, the only issue I'm having is battery is showing it needs to be serviced. I'm not sure if Apple's going to take care of this or not and I'm not sure if it would've been covered with or without AC.

I have heard of people with logic board issues and AC saved the day. While that's a risk, only you can decide if you're willing to take it. I will say taking it to college daily puts it at a greater risk of being knocked around.

I would definitely buy Applecare, but put aside the money and wait until a week or so before your 1 yr warranty expires. That way if you break / lose your laptop, you won't be out any money for Applecare. I've had my Mac mini logic board replaced 2x @ about 350-400$ each. Also, my Macbook pro trackpad and logic board went out separate times, $$$$$. In the end it's all about insurance, you may use it, you may not.

I also would wait and then get a Retina 13" when they put Haswell in it

The 13" retina is the absolute perfect size IMO (I am a Nursing student). Powerful, fast, slim. I just hated the size factor of the 11" and 13" Airs. (I had both and returned them)

I have heard of people with logic board issues and AC saved the day. While that's a risk, only you can decide if you're willing to take it. I will say taking it to college daily puts it at a greater risk of being knocked around.

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Yep I had my logic board replaced in my early 2011 15" MBP and the total cost $00.00 under apple care. The actual parts cost and labor which came up on my genius bar receipt about $750

apple care was an extra $400 or something so yes worth it.

Also if you want to keep it for 4 years wouldn't be a terrible idea to upgrade the HD

Definitely upgrade the hard drive. I started college in 09. bought a macbook pro 13". Made it all four years (needed a display change though) a year ago. Luckily I was covered under my geek squad protection plan. so I definitely recommend getting a plan of some sort at least. And upgrade to the HDD. I have the 160GB, and it's a bit of an issue for me to make it all work out space wise. I can guarantee you'll want a bigger hard drive.

Personally, I'm about to graduate next spring and going to law school. And I plan on getting the same set up as you with just a bigger hard drive.

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